Boy, 18, Jailed For Cutting Trees

Eighteen-year-old
Kofi Daniel Gontog from Techiman in the Brong-Ahafo Region has been jailed by a
Sunyani Circuit Court for entering a forest reserve to cut down trees.

The
court, presided over by Jojo Hagan, offered him a six-month jail sentence while
his accomplice, Albert Ngmeni, 27, a chain saw operator, also had six months to
serve in prison.

They
went to fell trees from the Mpameso Forest Reserve at Dormaa Ahenkro.

A
third suspect, known only as Michael, is on the run and is being sought by the
police.

The
Assistant District Forestry Manager in-charge of Dormaa Ahenkro Forest Services
Division, Felix Amoah, is the plaintiff in the case.

Prosecuting,
Chief Inspector Ernest Donyina told the court that Mr. Amoah and his monitoring
team were on their usual duty at about 2:00pm on January 26, 2019, when they
spotted the accused persons sawing three wawa trees and one utile, a large tropical African hardwood widely used as a substitute for
mahogany, in a forest
near Santase in the Mpameso Forest Reserve.

They
were, therefore, arrested and handed over to the police for investigations.

He
said investigations revealed that Michael engaged the two— Albert and
Kofi— to
go and fell the trees and saw them for him on January 24and 26,
2019.

Lumber
cut from the three wawa trees were valued at GH¢7,382.20 while that of the utile
was valued at GH ¢3,220.97. They were consequently charged with the offence of
conspiracy to commit crime, entering the forest reserve and harvesting timber
without any timber utilization contract, contrary to Section 23(1) of Criminal
Offences Act 1960 and Section 17(2a) of Timber Resource Management Act 1918, (Act
547).

The judge refused to accept their plea that they were not aware the area is a forest reserve, hence they have been sentenced to hard labour.

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